Needless to say, I end up crying a lot. To me it’s a normal, automatic expression of feeling. It shows that I am emotionally attached to the situation, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively.

When my bf is negatively effected by something he might yell a bit, many people do but many others cry.Yet for some reason when the first tear that slides down my cheek it seems to wash away any conception people have of me as a “strong woman”. I struggle to find the logic in this. Big girls DO cry. Why is my natural emotional response less valid than my bf’s?

The times that I have started crying in righteous anger are numerous. And then crying harder once I realize that my justifiable points are being drowned in tears. When did it come to be that tears are synonymous with weakness? And though we are now telling men that it is ok to embrace their “feminine” side and let their feelings and tears out. I wish to disagree. Telling them to embrace their “feminine” side makes it sound like they are stooping to something of a lower sphere. Its not a just a “feminine” thing, its a human thing. Its a means of expressing emotion.

A few weeks back I was involved in a street harassment incident and as I yelled at the group of guys responsible I could feel the tears coming, more out of anger than of fear or hurt. Having already been harassed, the last thing I wanted was to be taunted for crying, so after choking out a few choice words I walked away. I fought the tears all the way home on the train for fear of ridicule and then burst like a water balloon once I got on the phone with my bf.

Did those tears make me any less strong? NO. Truth is I had been harassed because I stood up for another girl that been harassed. I handled the situation and removed myself before it got worse. I stood up for myself and crying then or after does not negate that fact. It does not make me weak. Now I just have to make my bf see that and then the world